5 Countries Agree to Talk, Not Compete, Over the Arctic

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: May 29, 2008

Diplomats from the five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean adopted a declaration on Wednesday aimed at defusing tensions over the likelihood that global warming will open northern waters to shipping, energy extraction and other activities.

The agreement, reached after a daylong meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland, said the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark saw no need for new accords on Arctic matters and would use existing international laws like the Law of the Sea Treaty to resolve disputes. Greenland belongs to Denmark.

The countries also agreed to work more cooperatively to limit environmental risks attending more Arctic shipping and commerce and to coordinate potential rescue operations given the rising number of tourists heading north as sea ice increasingly retreats in the summer.

The meeting capped a frenetic year of Arctic activity as countries vied to demonstrate their polar hegemony with a mix of rhetoric, military maneuvers and, in the case of Russia, a submarine voyage to the seabed at the North Pole.

One of the two participating minisubmarines left a titanium national flag on the bottom, 14,000 feet beneath the shifting sea ice.

In a statement, Per Stig Moller, Denmark's foreign minister, alluded to that voyage and the media blitz that followed. ''We have politically committed ourselves to resolve all differences through negotiations,'' he said. ''And thus we have hopefully, once and for all, killed all the myths of a 'race to the North Pole.' The rules are in place. And the five states have now declared that they will abide by them.''

European environmental groups have expressed concern recently about a looming Arctic rush for resources and potential environmental harms.

Indigenous peoples in the region have been divided over the prospect of more economic activity, but many Inuit leaders have expressed strong concern about the threat to their traditions as open water expands.